Brightest Flame
by androidilenya
Summary: "What she wanted was the fire, and what she feared was being burned." Nerdanel/Fëanor. Oneshot. Written for B2MEM 2013.


**Written for Back to Middle-earth Month 2013.**

**Prompt from Day Nineteen: "Fëanor and his sons abode seldom in one place for long, but travelled far and wide upon the confines of Valinor, going even to the borders of the Dark and the cold shores of the Outer Sea, seeking the unknown."**

**From The Silmarillion, Chapter Five, 'Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië'**

**It's kind of hard to explain exactly how that prompt at all connects to this fic. But whatever. I just... eh.**

**Nerdanel's point of view.**

* * *

He was so still, lying beside her, only the slightest rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was still alive, and not a corpse cooling under the sheets beside her. But she could feel the warmth of his skin - he had always burned like fire whenever he touched her, and sometimes when they were pressed against each other she was afraid that the flame within him would scorch her, leave her fingers and shoulders and breasts a blistered ruin. And sometimes there was a dark spark in his storm-grey eyes that made her cringe, made her want to flee - and made her want to melt into him.

But when that spark _wasn't_ there that he really scared her. When he was cold and distant and somehow _not there_, even if he was standing right beside her.

_Are you still awake?_ she wanted to ask, and the words were a leaden weight in her throat, choking her, fighting to free themselves and fighting to stay right where they were.

There was no answer to the question she would never ask.

Somewhere down the hall their eldest son cried out in his sleep, then subsided into silence. She did not move, barely even considered rising to investigate. Her son had inherited nothing but her flame-red hair, the hair her husband used to stroke and name fair, bury his face in and whisper to her as it caught the forge's light, heat beating both of them back. And he had always been the one more comfortable in that inferno, while she had been drawn into it - into him - almost against her will (but mostly not - or so she told herself).

It was so quiet. She almost wished he would make a sound, anything - because she didn't dare break that silence herself (never had).

She dreamed - or did not, and perhaps it did not matter either way - that he burned, his body falling to ash, the ash flowing away on a cold, dark wind. She reached out, cried out, tried to hold on to him, and was left with a double handful of grey heat that smudged her arms, staining them dark. It almost looked like blood in the starlight.

There had been blood on his hands, too, in another dream - and hers, and her sons'.

She dreamed that the starlight faded, erased by a new fire rising in the east. The sky - dark like his hair, scattered with light - turned steel grey, then bloody crimson, rippling like the waters she knew (or thought she knew, though they were stained with his sins now, and hers, for not being strong enough to stop him). And when the sun rose, she tried to hold it, because surely this was him, reborn as a true spirit of fire, for what else could shine as brightly as he did?

Her hands were burning.

_(spirit of fire)_

She fell from the fire into the darkness (unless that was reality, and this the dream) and almost reached for him. Her fingers twitched, maybe (and if they did, it was an accident). He was mere inches away, and if she crossed that void, that safe-space of cooling sheet - she was not afraid he would not wake, she was afraid he would.

_Will you leave me, or will I leave you?_ she wondered, and not for the first time.

And this: _If you really wanted to escape, wouldn't you have been gone by now?_ She wasn't sure - had never been sure, to tell the truth - whether that was a question for her or for him. Perhaps it was only that: a question. Just words, and words were wind, meaningless as the three he had whispered, cried, sworn to her so many times before, long ago (though never now, she realized, probably because they didn't matter anymore).

He had been pulling away for a while now. Still shining just as brightly, only... farther away. As though that flame were no longer for her. Yet there were times when he was just as close as he'd always been, and those were the times he scared her - maybe a little, maybe a lot.

She'd always known that she was dancing beside an open flame every time she spoke to him - and so she wasn't surprised, truly, when it finally burned her.

_What do you want from me?_ he had asked once, not so long ago, his voice rough and furious, and she had pulled a thick curtain of silence about her and watched his lips move, his eyes darken with rage, that dangerous spark flashing in them - and yes, she had responded to that with something that wasn't entirely fear. She had been alone (lonely) for so long, she thought maybe she deserved the way he could tear her apart with nothing more than his sword-sharp eyes.

And she knew the answer to his question now - it was easier to answer him when she was alone, without his eyes on her, without his questions hammering at her. It was always _easier_ when he was gone, but so cold.

What she wanted was the fire, and what she feared was being burned.

He had frightened her - just a little, then a bit more - since the very first day. But his questions had been soft, gentle - at least in the beginning _(does this hurt?)_ - and she had had answers back then, but no longer.

_What do you want me to say? And would it be worth even trying?_

_(Would it make you stay?)_

She almost moved again, nearly brushed her arm against his - she could almost feel it, the heat from his skin, the soft hairs of his arm tickling hers - but she didn't dare, never had.

_Do you wish it had turned out differently?_ she pretended she wanted to ask, and his almost-reply echoed in the silence that pressed down on her chest, made it harder to breath but easier to lie to herself.

_I have never believed in such childish things as wishes._

The fire kept burning. She turned away, and slept.


End file.
